Book Blog

History of the Persian Empire, by A.T. Olsmtead, came out in 1948. It’s quite a monster – 524 pages – and must have been the epic of that time. Anything you wanted to know (at least in 1948) is in this book. My point in picking this up was to reacquaint myself with the Persians before having to speak about them at book functions. After all, its been twelve years since I did my heavy-lifting research for Early ReTyrement and, no, I don’t remember everything I’d read or known or discovered, not that long ago. It’s interesting though – he […]

Short story this time – the magnificent tale of a planter who refuses, against man and nature and the very gods, to abandon his scientifically-run plantation to a sweeping wave of ants. Written by Carl Stephenson for Esquire in 1938, it carries all sorts of themes across its short length. We have the white man’s burden (that is, the blunt Leiningen boosting, rallying, even threatening his squealing fearful natives to hold the line against this formicidaen army). We have the application of science to solve all problems, from the initial success of the the orderly, modern plantation to its defense […]

The poor Palm. The Palm is a splayed formation of land under a two-mooned sky, overrun twenty years ago by TWO empires, the Ygrath from the west, the Barbarior from the east. Since that invasion, the land huddles like Czechoslovakia beneath Germany and Russia. Worse, so bitter was the fighting in the west and so angered was the Ygrathian ruler with his son’s death in that campaign that he destroyed the two cities of the primary state which had stood against him, toppling its towers, grinding the survivors under heavy taxation, and even magically striking the original name of the […]

Ever had one of those things you’ve done in your life where you think back about it and shudder? Like a moment where you were so petty, so selfish, so cruel that you keep it locked down and try not to remember it. What if the world had thoughts like that, where it would look back and all its bloodshed and religious strife and economic crimes and colonization and collectively wince at itself? It seems amazing, when you think about it, that some people sleep in innocence in mansions while homeless children live in cars. That’s pretty much the course […]

Like my historical friends, I had this view of World War Two, the string of battles that constituted the path towards Allied victory (unlike those non-historical boobs in the mainstream, who don’t know when it was fought and between who). But after reading Richard Overy’s Why the Allies Won, the entire thing takes on a whole new meaning. Inevitable turns into improbably in a number of aspects. When you look at the map and forces in 1941, it looked like it was time to mix cyanide into your scotch. The Germans had swept aside everyone, and controlled the continent from […]

In my science fiction stories (both the published Early ReTyrement and several others I spooled out over the years), the hero did the direct jump, either backwards or forwards. Blink and he’s there. In the Casca series, the hero does it the long way, by living each year. See, Casca Rufio Longinus is the hapless Roman soldier put on execution duty. He’s on the detail putting Christ up on the cross. And in that, he takes pity on the guy and jams his spear into him if only to shorten his suffering. Christ, for all his blessings, misinterprets this action […]

Cussler is a lot like Pizza – very tasty, very fun, very casual, but not much in the way of substance. Now that I’ve gotten my high-brow snarkiness out of the way, lets get down to brass tacks – The Wrecker is a thriller set in 1907 or so by a writer from Cussler’s stable, an effort to export the high-level, fast-paced political-action thriller back into a world we think of as kinder and gentler (don’t be fooled – a decade later, men hung up on barbed wire would be machined-gunned). Interestingly, many of the causal reviewers were impressed with […]

Quicksilver – what can I possibly say about this thing? Well, it’s massive (916 pages). And it’s historical (spanning various settings between 1655 to 1689). And it’s confusing. Reading this book was like a car chase through history, with Neal Stephenson leading us through dark historic alleys, down temporal streets the wrong way, back-tracking, and often stopping to discharge characters and pick up a few more. In the end, I’m confused, exhausted, and frustrated. Yeah, it was that good! The thing is, even though I didn’t catch everything the book had to offer, even though I didn’t understand several of […]

I’ll remind you that while I was in London a few months ago, we visited the Tate Modern with its display of John Martin Paintings. I also picked up a hard back from the gift shop, Pandemonium, a series of short stories based on the paintings reviewed. I loved the paintings and really loved the book (limited edition – I snagged number 7 out of 100). I reviewed it HERE. With great expectations, I ordered Pandemonium: Stories of the Smoke, a book purportedly focused on London, mostly Dickens’ London, but London all the same. Got it and read it in […]

The wordy name for this book is I wish there was something that I could quit. What drew me to it (on the CD shop bookshelf) was the old drawing of a railroadman leaning out of a tower, pocket watch in hand, watching a set of 1950’s diesels blur past. The 50’s are great fodder nowadays; full of irony. So the story is about four young folks, Laura (a gloomy rock-throwing-at-military-trains nutcase), Aaron (the nutty-yet-earnest fellow living in his dead tour van in her driveway), Susan (the bartender seeking a strong man and…) Jemuel (her boyfriend, baby-weak yet organized to […]